Returning Down Under After 10 Years

About (2007)

This the home for planning and documentation of my visit to Australia in October of 2007. I am fortunate to be invited as a speaker for the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. As the details are finalized, this blog will contain information on the tour, presentation materials, photos, and notes from the visit. Between now and then, it will serve as my “outboard brain” as I develop the bits I will talk about.

Since April 2006, I have been working for the New Media Consortium (NMC) currently in the role of Vice President of NMC Community and Chief Technology Officer. The NMC is a membership organization of some 250 leading colleges, universities, museums, and research areas and we focus on enhancing the use of technology for teaching, learning, and creative expression. Besides a number of face to face and online conferences, the NMC also is engaged with research of emerging technologies, with the yearly Horizon Report and experimental work in virtual worlds. Before this, I served 14 years envangelizing instructional technology with the Maricopa Community Colleges, including web site development/r&d with the Maricopa Center for learning & Instruction, leading initiatives such as the Ocotillo project, and piloting unique projects such as the Maricopa Learning eXchange. One widely used tool I created there, Feed2JS, was designed to make it easy for individuals to use RSS content in their own web sites, is now an open source tool.

As part of the scheme, this blog is created as a free hosted site at WordPress.com and will put to use the tools (predominantly the free cool ones) and tidbits I will demonstrate. There is also a companion wiki for planning hosted at PBWiki. It’s theme and name, is play on the site blog I write mostly as my own space, CogDogBlog, and replacing my “dog” theme with something more local.

In my previous experience in the land of educational technology, I have enjoyed previous interactions with my Australian colleagues. This has included:

Like this:

3 thoughts on “About (2007)”

Was just cruising and happened to spy CogDogRoo and thought that sounds just like someone I know – must send him the link. Guess what – it is him. Hi there – and you coming back our way. Am getting ready to host 16 students from Scottsdale arriving June 17 – taking them over to Dareton this year which will be a real rural Australia experience. Am going to have a good look at your blog when finish the report working on. Am one of the Learnscope Leadership elearning network project members.